Variety of food available at fair

Posted: Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Cheryl Berzanskiscberzanskis@amarillonet.com

If going to the Tri-State Fair provides a chance to exchange a sometimes grungy reality for midway glitter, then midway food - funnel cake, fried ice cream, curly fries and cheese-on-a-stick - must be an exercise in nutritional denial. You can't even pretend it's really good for you.

From his food trailer flanked by a pair of gigantic wooden ostrich cutouts, Douglas Rice flies in the face of fair food logic and touts the benefits of the bird - low calorie, low fat, low cholesterol. And the meat is good, too, the Texline grower says.

Rice and other ostrich raisers offer a menu of meals including fajitas, chili, Frito pie, burgers and corn dogs ranging from $2.50 to $3. A sign in the trailer window tells diners three ounces of ostrich meat has just over 96 calories and two grams of fat.

"We just thought it was a good way to present a healthy menu at the fair," said Rice, a 10-year veteran of the ostrich business.

But whether or not you care about the health benefits of fair food, diners say nothing cooked at home or purchased at a restaurant tastes quite like it.

"It's probably once a year that we come to get a funnel cake," said Ann Wells of Stratford, who divided one of the confections with her daughter, Lari Wells.

"There were plenty of other places to stop, but we didn't get anything to eat 'til we got to the fair," said Ann Wells.

Earlier Ann Wells dined on a barbecue sandwich and lemonade while Lari Wells, a junior at West Texas A&M University, ate a corn dog. Ann Wells said she once tried to cook the troublesome funnel cakes at home.

"And they don't taste the same if you're not hot and sweaty out here with a bunch of fair people," she said.

Longtime friends and Amarillo College retirees Iwana Young and Dorothy Baker followed their foot-long, mustard smeared corn dogs with a plate of curly fries so big Young could barely carry it.